I have stumbled upon the idea of mouse-less navigation on the Global Formats
site.
http://www.globalformats.com/mouse.html
They are a company that improve the accessibility of existing web sites.
They enable mouse-less navigation using the "acesskey" parameter on links so
they can be activated using an ALT+letter combination.
My experience in support and implementation of DOS applications showed me
that users remembered certain useful key combinations and used them without
even remembering what they stand for. I would ask : "What did you do?" and
she would say "F5 and then F2 and then three returns" and I would have to
repeat it on my computer in order to understand what she did.
I would think that people who work with applications (web or not) would
bless the opportunity to have key combinations they can use for repetitive
actions without the need of leaving the keyboard.
Since the main business of the company I work for is web applications, I
wonder if any research was done on the difference between mouse and
mouse-less work in web applications, assuming the user is well acquainted
with the application.
Hanan Cohen,
Viryanet
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